George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is the current President (or Emperor) of the United States. He is the first chimpanzee to become president, He became president in 2000 only after the Supreme Court overruled the Florida Supreme Court and stopped a vote recount, thus allowing the Republican Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to hand the election to Bush. After a dirty campaign in 2004, Bush was elected and is currently serving his second term as President. Bush was given the nickname of Dubya by the press, due to his middle initial "W". The Americans have finally seen through Bush and have chosen Barack Obama to succeed him. Sadly the United States and the world will have to wait till January 20th 2009 when Obama will take over. Texas Air National Guard At the height of the Vietnam War, Bush was accepted into the Texas Air National Guard in May 1968, despite scoring the lowest acceptable passing grade on the pilot's written aptitude test.Bush's Guard Service In Question, February 3, 2004, The Washington PostOfficial DoD service records of Texas Air National Guard member George Walker Bush, June 17 2005The Innovation Center for Occupational Data, Applications and Practices, Interpretation and Utilization of Scores on the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test He later said, "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."The Houston Chronicle, 1994-05-08On the Trail with John Kerry, MSNBC, Feb 8, 2004 It is believed that a family friend pulled strings to get him into the National Guard, so he could avoid combat duty in Vietnam. Despite the fact that he used family connections to avoid combat, he has always been hawkish on Vietnam. Apparently, it was just fine for other people to fight there. Now that's what they call a Chickenhawk. After training, he was assigned to duty in Houston, flying Convair F-102s out of Ellington Air Force Base.The Facts about Bush and the National Guard, National Review Online, August 26 2004 Critics allege Bush was favorably treated because of his father's political standing, citing his lack of combat service and his irregular attendance.Bush's Guard Service In Question, 04-02-03, Washington Post The United States Department of Defense released all the records which remain in its official archives of Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, whether any have been destroyed is questioned. Though not accepted to the University of Texas School of Law in 1970,Bush Chronology, PBS - Frontline he accepted a transfer to the Alabama Air National Guard in 1972 to work on a Republican senate campaign, and in October 1973 he was discharged from the Texas Air National Guard, almost eight months early without being called to active duty to serve in Vietnam, to attend Harvard Business School.Bush's Guard service: What the record shows, 2005-02-05, The Boston Globe While at Harvard, Bush completed his six-year service obligation in the inactive reserve.Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, Jeff Birnbaum, Charles Krauthammer, The All-Star Panel Discusses John Kerry's Shifting Positions on Iraq War Spending, Fox News Network (transcript), 2004-07-09 During this time Bush had multiple accounts of substance abuse.Bush's Life-Changing Year, The Washington Post, July 25 1999 In one instance, Bush was arrested near his family's summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine for driving under the influence of alcohol at the age of thirty on September 4, 1976. He plead guilty, was fined US$150, and had his Maine driver's license suspended until 1978.2000 Driving Record, November 2 2000, Department of the Secretary of State of MaineFallout From A Midnight Ride, November 13 2000, Time Magazine Bush then attended Harvard University, where he earned his Master of Business Administration degree,GWB: HBS MBA, The American Thinker and entered the oil industry in Texas not long afterward. Presidency FEMA The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The purpose of FEMA (begun by Presidential Order on April 1, 1979) is to coordinate the response to a disaster which has occurred in the United States and which overwhelms the resources of local and state authorities. On January 4, 2001, just before taking office, Bush announced he would nominate Joe Allbaugh as head of FEMA. Joe Allbaugh had helped manage his 2000 presidential election campaign and also went to Florida to run the post-election ballot dispute there. Although he had no experience with disaster management, he was confirmed as Director of FEMA in February 2001 by the Senate in a unanimous vote."Allbaugh Confirmed as Chief of FEMA". Los Angeles Times, February 16, 2001, p. A15. As the September 11 attacks eventually led to a cabinet reorganization placing FEMA in the newly created Department of Homeland Security, Allbaugh elected to leave the agency. He made his resignation effective March 1, 2003, the date the reorganization was to take effect.Kemper, Vicki. "FEMA Chief, a Key Bush Advisor, Announces Resignation". Los Angeles Times, December 17, 2002, p. A32. His successor was Michael D. Brown, an old friend from Republican state politics. Brown was the first person Allbaugh hired at FEMA.FEMA director Brown singled out by critics of federal response, Washington Post, September 6, 2005 Hired as general counsel, he went on to become deputy director before taking over the top post at the agency.Silverstein, Ken. "Top FEMA Jobs: No Experience Required". Los Angeles Times, September 9, 2005, p. A10. Michael D. Brown also had limited or no experience with disaster management, although his White House biography claimed a prior job as an administrative assistant to the city manager of Edmond, Oklahoma (1980 population of 58,123) for three years while he was attending college gave him "emergency services oversight" experience. For two years after Hurricane Katrina, FEMA stored 121 truckloads of household items that were purchased or donated for Katrina victims. FEMA eventually declared the items surplus, saying it was too expensive to keep warehousing them, and then offered them to federal agencies and states. The items were then given to 11 state agencies, schools, cities and fire departments rather than being distributed to residents trying to rebuild their homes. Leaders of nonprofit groups helping Katrina victims were astounded. All said they were unaware that such supplies were available.Casino regulators got items meant for Katrina victims, CNN.com, July 16, 2008, Accessed 2008-07-16 9/11 "All right, you've covered your ass, now." - George W. Bush to unnamed CIA briefer who flew to Bush's Texas ranch, amid a flurry of reports of a pending al-Qaeda attack, to call the president's attention personally to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US." Bush then went fishing.The Shadow War, In a Surprising New Light, The Washington Post, June 20, 2006, Accessed 2008-07-11 North Korea President Bill Clinton on October 21, 1994 signed an "Agreed Framework between the United States of America and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea". The objective of the agreement was the freezing and replacement of North Korea's indigenous nuclear power plant program with more nuclear proliferation resistant light water reactor power plants, and the step-by-step normalization of relations between the U.S. and the DPRK (North Korea). George W. Bush announced his opposition to the Agreed Framework during his Presidential candidacy. Early in the Administration, according to John Feffer, co-director of the think tank Foreign Policy in Focus, The primary problem is that the current U.S. administration fundamentally doesn’t want an agreement with North Korea. The Bush administration considers the 1994 Agreed Framework to have been a flawed agreement. It doesn’t want be saddled with a similar agreement, for if it did sign one, it would then be open to charges of "appeasing" Pyongyang. The Vice President has summed up the approach as: "We don’t negotiate with evil, we defeat evil."Korea Is One: U.S. Talks with North Korea ’Set Up to Fail, accessdate=2006-10-05 Talks broke down due to various reasons, a major one being that Bush had no interest in dealing with the complex and difficult negotiations. Realizing that Bush had no desire to deal with them as equals, North Korea on January 10, 2003, again announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. On February 10, 2005, North Korea finally declared that it had manufactured nuclear weapons as a "nuclear deterrent for self-defense". On October 9, 2006, North Korea conducted a nuclear test. US intelligence agencies believe that North Korea has manufactured a handful of simple nuclear weapons. With the war in Iraq bogged down, and finally realizing that the USA had little or no military bargaining power, Bush finally agreed to talks after the North Korean test. Currently in the hands of professional diplomats, rather than Administration neocons, six-party talks, between the United States, North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, appear to be having some results. North Korea has agreed to disclose all nuclear programs and disable all facilities related to its nuclear programs. Valerie Plame Valerie Plame Wilson, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, is a former United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Operations Officer, whose covert identity was classified."Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House", Valerie PlameAdam Liptak, "Judge Backs C.I.A. in Suit On Memoir", The New York Times August 3, 2007, accessed March 23, 2008."Unclassified Summary of Valerie Wilson's CIA Employment and Cover History", "Exhibit A" in sentencing memorandum exhibits, United States v. Libby, online posting of public document, The Next Hurrah (blog), May 26, 2007: 2-3."Valerie Plame, Covert After All" ("Though some on the right have denied it, Plame was a covert CIA operative when she was exposed by Robert Novak. Read the document that proves It."), Salon (magazine), May 30, 2007, accessed August 12, 2007. Includes screen shots of the PDF (three pages).Richard Leiby, "Valerie Plame, the Spy Who Got Shoved Out into the Cold", The Washington Post, October 29, 2005, accessed August 22, 2007. After working for the CIA for twenty years, she retired in December 2005, as a result of the publication and compromising of her classified cover identity by an American journalist in the summer of 2003.John Solomon, "Rove Learned CIA Agent's Name from Novak", USA Today, July 15, 2005, accessed July 15, 2006.Joel Seidman (Producer, NBC News), "Plame Was 'covert' Agent at Time of Name Leak: Newly Released Unclassified Document Details CIA Employment", MSNBC, May 29, 2007, accessed August 10, 2007. Mrs. Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, stated in various interviews and subsequent writings (as listed in his 2004 memoir The Politics of Truth) that members of President George W. Bush's administration revealed Mrs. Wilson's covert status as retribution for his op-ed entitled "What I Didn't Find in Africa," published in The New York Times on July 6, 2003.Joseph C. Wilson 4th, "What I Didn't Find in Africa", The New York Times, July 6, 2003, accessed June 10, 2007. Revealing the identity of a covert CIA operative is illegal under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. On September 30, 2003, President Bush said that if there had been "a leak" from his administration about Plame, "I want to know who it is... and if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."Bush Says He'll Fire Any Aide Who 'Committed a Crime', New York Times, July 18, 2005 Initially, the White House denied that Karl Rove and the Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were involved in the leak.Role of Rove, Libby in CIA Leak Case Clearer, The Washington Post, October 2, 2005 Although Libby, Rove, and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer were all discovered to have discussed Plame with the press while she was a covert agent, none were fired by Bush. Libby resigned all government positions immediately after he was indicted on federal obstruction and perjury charges stemming from his lying to the FBI about the affair. Rove and Fleischer left their jobs later, for unrelated reasons. Libby was convicted on four of the five counts in the affair: one count of obstruction of justice; two counts of perjury; and one count of making false statements to FBI investigators."I. Lewis Libby Jr. (Index): The Counts", The New York Times, Times Topics, updated periodically, 6 March, 2007, accessed 6 July, 2007. On June 5, 2007, the presiding trial judge sentenced Libby to 30 months in federal prison, a fine of US$250,000, and two years of supervised release, including 400 hours of community service,Paul Courson, Brianna Keilar, Brian Todd, Jeffrey Toobin, and the Associated Press, "Libby Sentenced to 30 months in Prison", CNN.com, 5 June, 2007, accessed 5 June, 2007.Matt Apuzzo and Pete Yost (Associated Press), "Libby Sentenced to 2 1/2 Years in Prison", The Boston Globe, 5 June, 2007, accessed 5 July, 2007.See qualification in Jeralyn Merritt, "Scooter Libby: 30 Months in Prison, $250k Fine", TalkLeft (accredited press blog), 5 June, 2007, accessed 5 June, 2007: "Note: CNN erroneously reported that Libby's sentence included 2 years probation. In fact, it was supervised release, which is similar but different from probation, and replaced parole in the federal system in 1987."Jeralyn Merritt, "Libby: Life on Supervised Release", TalkLeft (accredited press blog), 5 July, 2007, accessed 8 July, 2007. (Provides link to PDF of Judge Walton's "Judgment in a Criminal Case" in United States v. Libby, filed 22 June, 2007, accessed 8 July, 2007.) and then ordered Libby to begin his sentence immediately."Judge Orders Libby Jailed during Appeal", CNN News, 14 June, 2007, accessed 8 July, 2007. On July 2, 2007, when Libby's appeal of Judge Walton's order failed, President Bush commuted Libby's 30-month prison sentence, leaving the other parts of his sentence intact.George W. Bush, "Grant of Executive Clemency: A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America", The White House, 2 July, 2007, accessed 2 July, 2007.Edwin Chen, "Bush Commutes Libby's Prison Term in CIA Leak Case (Update 2)", Bloomberg News, 2 July, 2007, accessed 2 July, 2007. In commuting Libby's prison term, Bush stated: "I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison. ... My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged." After Libby paid his monetary fine and penalty totaling US$250,400, Judge Walton queried aspects of the presidential commutation,Neil Lewis and Jim Rutenberg, ""Libby Pays Fine; Judge Poses Probation Query", The New York Times, 6 July, 2007, accessed 6 July, 2007. and lawyers filed their briefs supporting Libby's serving supervised release, resolving the issue and thus clearing the way for Libby to begin the rest of his sentence, the two years of supervised release and 400 hours of community service.Jeralyn Merritt, "All Sides Agree Libby Should Serve Supervised Release", TalkLeft (accredited press blog), 9 July, 2007, accessed 10 July, 2007. (Provides links to PDF versions of the various legal briefs.)Neil A. Lewis, "Issue of Supervised Release for Libby Is Cleared Up", The New York Times, 10 July, 2007, accessed 10 July, 2007. It has been widely speculated that Bush will grant Libby a full pardon on his last day in office. On July 16, 2008, Bush blocked the release of Vice President Dick Cheney's interview with investigators probing the leak, invoking executive privilege to keep that document and others under wraps.Bush keeps Cheney's CIA leak interview under wraps, CNN Political Ticker, 2008-07-16, Accessed 2008-07-16 Hurricane Katrina Bush was on vacation at his home in Crawford, TexasStaff Writer. "Bush cancels trip to Texas." September 23, 2005. Retrieved on July 15, 2006.Brooks, Rosa. "American Caesar." Los Angeles Times. September 3, 2003. Retrieved on July 15, 2006. when Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005. During his appearance at the Navy base, which was primarily for the purpose of celebrating recent actions in Iraq, the Commander in Chief urged his fellow citizens to call an 800 number to make donations to hurricane relief. Early Tuesday morning, August 30, a day after the hurricane struck, President Bush attended a V-J Day commemoration ceremony at Coronado, California.Kucher, Karen; Baker, Debbi Farr. "Bush marks anniversary of World War II's end with comparison to post-war Iraq." San Diego Union Tribune. August 30, 2005. Retrieved on July 15, 2006. 24 hours before the ceremony, storm surges began overwhelming levees and floodwalls protecting the city of New Orleans, greatly exacerbating the minimal damage from rainfall and wind when the hurricane itself veered to the East and avoided a direct hit on New Orleans.MacCash, Doug; O'Byrne, James. "After the mighty storm came the rising water." Times Picayune. August 30, 2005. Initial reports of leaked video footage of top-level briefings held before the storm claimed that this video contradicted Bush’s earlier statements that no one anticipated the breach of the levees.Staff Writer. "Video shows Bush Katrina warning." BBC News March 2, 2006. Retrieved on July 15, 2006. Transcripts revealed that Bush was warned of possible overtopping of the levees. The New York Times, in an editorial describing the President's reaction in a September 1 speech, said, "Nothing about the President's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis."Gumbel, Andrew. "'Casual to the point of careless' - Bush under fire for slow reaction." The Independent. September 2, 2005. Retrieved on July 15, 2006. Bush was also criticized for not breaking off his vacation until Wednesday afternoon, more than a day after the hurricane hit on Monday.Bumiller, Elisabeth. "Bush criticized over storm response." International Herald Tribune. September 2, 2005. Retrieved on July 15, 2006. Vice President Dick Cheney on the night of August 30, and again the next morning, personally called the manager of the Southern Pines Electric Power Association and ordered him to divert power crews to electrical substations in nearby Collins, Mississippi that were essential to the operation of the Colonial Pipeline, which carries gasoline and diesel fuel from Texas to the Northeastern United States.Maute, Nikki D. "Power crews diverted." Hattiesburg American. September 11, 2005. Retrieved on July 15, 2006 (copy available at Newsdesk). The power crews were reportedly upset when told what the purpose of the redirection was, since they were in the process of restoring power to two local hospitals, but did so anyway. In January 2007, former FEMA director Michael D. Brown charged that partisan politics had played a role in the White House's decision to federalize emergency response to the disaster in Louisiana only rather than along the entire affected Gulf Coast region, which Brown said he had advocated. "Unbeknownst to me, certain people in the White House were thinking, 'We had to federalize Louisiana because she's a white, female Democratic governor, and we have a chance to rub her nose in it,'" Brown said, speaking before a group of graduate students at the Metropolitan College of New York on January 19, 2007. "'We can't do it to Haley governor Haley Barbour because Haley's a white male Republican governor. And we can't do a thing to him. So we're just gonna federalize Louisiana.'" The White House denied Brown's charges through a spokeswoman.Toosi, Nahal. "Brown: Politics played role in Katrina." The Associated Press via the Houston Chronicle, Jan. 20, 2007. Bush later attracted criticism for failing to mention hurricane recovery, Katrina or New Orleans in his 2007 State of the Union Address.Peeples, Melanie. "Bush's State of the Union Omits State of Louisiana", NPR, Jan. 24, 2007. Morals He claims to be of high moral standards, but is killing Americans daily only because he lacks the courage to admit he was and is wrong. He was sitting in a chair reading a children's book for nine minutes after he was informed of the 9/11 attacks. Some say it was lack of leadership and understanding. He was sitting in a chair reading a children's book for 9 minutes after he was informed of the 9/11 attacks. Some say it was lack of leadership and understanding. George W. Bush has a history of intentional inertia. For example, when the first plane hit the world trade center, Bush was preoccupied with trying to read a book placed upside down. Well, actually, he wasn't reading it upside down, that is a Photoshopped joke.Bush's Upside-Down Book, 2006-09-12, Snopes.com, Accessed 2008-07-10 Bush actually can read, he just chooses not to read anything that might make him have to think. The book, entitled The Pet GoatSuddenly, a time to lead, The Washington Times, October 7, 2002, Accessdate=2006-03-20 was actually bait by the Republican extremist terrorists to distract Bush while they perpetrated 9/11. After Hurricane Katrina, Bush aided in relief efforts by singing to the grieving victims on his guitar, while he should have been signing legislation to deliver socialism to the needy refugees. Trivia about George W. Bush http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USnxe7hxP4I&NR=1 *George W Bush believes in imaginary friends. *George W Bush is incapable of pronouncing the words "nuclear" and "terror." Instead, he says "nucular" and something that sounds like "tuhr." *George W Bush is a puppet of the New World Order. *George W Bush has lysdexia. *George W Bush had reading contests with Karl Rove. On the Sunday after he resigned, ol' Turdblossom made the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows and said, with a straight face, that GW had already read almost 100 books in the year 2007. (Did Dr. Seuss write that many books?) *George W Bush is Dick Cheney's boss. No, really, he is. Honest. I swear... *George W Bush lied to the world. Apparently fish and people CANNOT coexist peacefully. *George W Bush is described as "Democrat" by many radio personalities. *George W Bush dropped his dog on its head *George W Bush is the first president in U.S history to refuse United Nations election inspectors *George W Bush was dropped on his head as a baby *George W Bush refused to fire-or even repremand-Lt. General Jerry "our God is bigger than their God" Boykin. Perhaps it's because Boykin said of the president, "George Bush was not elected by a majority of voters in the United States. He was appointed by God. He's in the white house because God put him there." *George W Bush, as owner of the Texas Rangers, traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago Cubs the year before Sosa made his famous home-run chase. *George W Bush is a Republican, or as it is called in Bushland, gas, oil, and petrol, see GOP *George W. Bush has a IQ lower then the IQ of the average 8th grader Bushisms Mr. Bush is also well known for his flawless command of the English language. (not) Below is a list of Bushisms for your enjoyment. The main article is Bushism. "You know, a trucker, if he's interested in moving through Northwest Arkansas in expedition fashion, will pay a little extra money to be able to do so."—explaining how toll roads can generate funds for highway maintenance while helping motorists move quickly, Rogers, Ark., Oct., 15, 2007'' "I got a lot of Ph.D.-types and smart people around me who come into the Oval Office and say, 'Mr. President, here's what's on my mind.' And I listen carefully to their advice. But having gathered the device, I decide, you know, I say, 'This is what we're going to do.' "— Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 3, 2007 "As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured."—New York, Sept. 26, 2007 "I'm going to try to see if I can remember as much to make it sound like I'm smart on the subject."—answering a question concerning a possible flu pandemic, Cleveland, July 10, 2007 "These are big achievements for this country, and the people of Bulgaria ought to be proud of the achievements that they have achieved."—Sofia, Bulgaria, June 11, 2007 "Wisdom and strength, and my family, is what I'd like for you to pray for."—Washington, D.C., May 2, 2007 (Why would we want to do that? They have done nothing but mess up our country)'' "Information is moving—you know, nightly news is one way, of course, but it's also moving through the blogosphere and through the Internets."—Washington, D.C., May 2, 2007 "I fully understand those who say you can't win this thing militarily. That's exactly what the United States military says, that you can't win this military." --George W. Bush, on the need for political progress in Iraq, Washington, D.C., Oct. 17, 2007 Reporter: "There's a concern that the Beruit airport has been bombed, and do you see a risk of triggering a wider war, and on Iran, they have so far refused to respond. Is it too far past a deadline or do they still have time to respond." Bush: "I thought you were going to ask about the pig." Bush: I think war's a dangerous place See also *Conservative Intellectualism External links *http://youtube.com/watch?v=0QdjRS-4AXQ Category:American People Category:Conservatives Category:Things Conservatives Love From Liberapedia, a Wikia wiki. References * Some information here has been taken from Wikipedia.